Softube or UAD?

[martinjuenke]

How their politic regarding updates?

You should have an active Update Plan (WUP).
You should have a comprehensive bundle (focus on one developer).
Their newer products are very often innovative problem solves that simply and quickly work. All these emulations of old gear are nice but for daily work not that relevant imo.
The Waves support is top. The company is big enough to survive the rapit market development.
Waves (and Eventide) are for me the most secure bets in audio plugin industry.

Thank you very much for your opinion!

You're welcome and sorry for my typos

No man! I Really want to choose the right purchase ))) I will learn more about Softube and waves... seems that Softube is also very very good!

Waves! They developed plugins many years ago that still are milestones, easy to use with quick and satisfying results

Softube too expensive.

[Alexander_D]

How their politic regarding updates?

You should have an active Update Plan (WUP).
You should have a comprehensive bundle (focus on one developer).
Their newer products are very often innovative problem solves that simply and quickly work. All these emulations of old gear are nice but for daily work not that relevant imo.
The Waves support is top. The company is big enough to survive the rapit market development.
Waves (and Eventide) are for me the most secure bets in audio plugin industry.

Thank you very much for your opinion!

You're welcome and sorry for my typos

No man! I Really want to choose the right purchase ))) I will learn more about Softube and waves... seems that Softube is also very very good!

Waves! They developed plugins many years ago that still are milestones, easy to use with quick and satisfying results

Will see. But thanks for the comment! I don't want to purchase UAD plugins for many reasons now...

[Lerian]

or maybe with my stock DAW plugins....

Many ppl really underestimate their DAW's stock plugins. Not sure about others, but Cubase and FL Studio have excellent stock plugins. But then again, there are 2 types of musicians - those obsessed with analog gear/emulations, and those obsessed with making music

[_leras]

or maybe with my stock DAW plugins....

Many ppl really underestimate their DAW's stock plugins. Not sure about others, but Cubase and FL Studio have excellent stock plugins. But then again, there are 2 types of musicians - those obsessed with analog gear/emulations, and those obsessed with making music

You didn't describe two types of musicians then, more some geeky obsessive who may not even make music, and then one kind of musician. You didn't include mixing engineers in the list of people that want better plug ins, which is a glaring omission. And don't forget many people, especially electronic musicians, mix and engineer themselves.

Of course better plug ins only really give incremental gains over say cubase plug ins. The music, source sounds, and mixing are the main priorities.

But plugins do make a difference and the top tier plug ins are rated highly for food reasonable.

Good mixing starts with good balance and energetic mix, but then it's levelled up with the compounding of hundred of small changes to really lift some thing - and this does include plug in quality in a number of ways.

I use UAD and they have many plug ins that really just make things sound better, on top of being useful tools to craft the mix. This can make the difference between a good mix and a sonically excellent sounding mix. (Of course when used appropriately)

Softube make top tier plug ins for sure, but they are not better than UAD. The UAD packages on offer really make them a no brainer if people want better sounding mixes.

[jancivil]

No, the free [UAD] are iLok protected too (machine-bound) - it's just that they also - in addition - phone home via UA Connect. And if you set the Connect Service to manual (this is Windows - no idea how it's handled on OSX) [...] so the UA Connect Service really needs to run in the background all the time, regardless

{This is MacOS. 14.7.1}
I never bought anything from them. However, recently I acquired a freebie, "Century Tube Channel Strip". Since then, alarmed at how I was running out of drive space without knowing why exactly, system drive, I deleted a lot of stuff and moved "UA Connect" and other extra large installer apps to another drive. So, the only time I had run UA Connect was to install this one thing.

(I don't like 'machine-bound' for anything.The UAD freebie is activated to the physical key along with everything else.

So today seeing this asserted I wondered if there was this necessity for this thing to always run in background here, because if so I prob. won't have a lot of interest in them. I opened Cubase 13 and instantiated the plugin. I looked for UA Connect running. Activity Monitor doesn't show anything that looks like it. It's not in the menu bar like ROLI Connect or other such things will be.
I opened VE Pro in both silicon 'native' and Rosetta 2 modes and instantiated it. (I want to check to see if there are any authorization SNAFUs, I may get back to work sometime before I expire.)
Running UA Connect the expected way, opening the app, shows 3 "UA Connect helpers", one "UA Connect" and one Cloud Helper in Activity Monitor, very obviously.

So I can be reasonably certain it isn't needed to use this thing on this system, anyway. It appears to use practically no resources, though.

[bk]

Here's my take on this: I used TRacks 5 plug-ins for several years, specifically the White LA and Black 76. I never got them to sound the way I thought they should. I was very unimpressed. I mean, it's essentially a 2 knob interface. There aren't a lot of ways you can screw it up. They just never sounded right to me. When UAD dropped their free LA2A I tried it and realized "this" is what I was looking for. I was hooked. Today, I have quite a few UAD plugs and didn't spend very much to make that happen.
I have zero problems with UAC, and zero problems with the plugs. They are certainly some of my most used plugs today.

As for ILOK: I would go with the dongle. I had a bunch of stuff licensed to my machine and then had a dvd burner fail (this has been a while back). When I replaced it, none of the ilok plugs worked. It took about 5 days for developers to reinstate all my licenses. I ordered the dongle while waiting. Of course, dongles can fail too, but it's proven to be best for me. Good luck with whatever you choose.

[Scotty Ellis]

I recently bought a plugin from Softube and then later in the week bought a bundle that contained that same plugin. I emailed Softube support and they quickly refunded me for the original purchase that I made. That would NEVER happen with UAD.

[Lerian]

really make them a no brainer if people want better sounding mixes.

You kinda miss the point. To whom do you think it matters if a mix has been made with UAD or stock plugins? That's right, to you alone. Listeners don't care. Also, if you can prove that an UAD plugin acts radically different on a piece of sound than a stock (or other brand) plugin, then you are right. Until then its just GAS, halo effect, and marginally and subjectively better to you alone.

[_leras]

really make them a no brainer if people want better sounding mixes.

You kinda miss the point. To whom do you think it matters if a mix has been made with UAD or stock plugins? That's right, to you alone. Listeners don't care. Also, if you can prove that an UAD plugin acts radically different on a piece of sound than a stock (or other brand) plugin, then you are right. Until then its just GAS, halo effect, and marginally and subjectively better to you alone.

I disagree. If there are two equally good prices of music, the one with the better sounding mix will be preferred by almost everyone.

My third party plug ins have many advantages over stock plug ins. DAWs also have different quality stock plug ins.

I'm terms of 'proving' that UAD are better than stock plug ins. Just trial the signature bundle or similar and see for your self. Do a mix then substitute stock for UAD plug ins. I don't need to do this as I can hear UAD improve the sonics nearly overtime I use them.

[Lerian]

the one with the better sounding mix will be preferred by almost everyone.

A "better" sounding mix is not restricted to UAD plugins. You can have an excellent mix using stock plugins, or other brands - like softube, fabfilter, waves, etc. This idea that UAD is way above other brands is just snake oil. Maybe you can have a different flavor, so slightly different (so small that is indistinguishable in a mix), but not night and day different. That is all the mixing/mastering engineer and the producer.

A good producer/mixer using stock plugins of a decent daw (like cubase, live, fl studio, etc) can always get a better sounding mix than an average engineer using whatever plugins they want. This was proven over and over again over time. A different plugin doesn't make a you a better engineer. That's just anxiety infused GAS.

[martinjuenke]

the one with the better sounding mix will be preferred by almost everyone.

A "better" sounding mix is not restricted to UAD plugins. You can have an excellent mix using stock plugins, or other brands - like softube, fabfilter, waves, etc. This idea that UAD is way above other brands is just snake oil. Maybe you can have a different flavor, so slightly different (so small that is indistinguishable in a mix), but not night and day different. That is all the mixing/mastering engineer and the producer.

A good producer/mixer using stock plugins of a decent daw (like cubase, live, fl studio, etc) can always get a better sounding mix than an average engineer using whatever plugins they want. This was proven over and over again over time. A different plugin doesn't make a you a better engineer. That's just anxiety infused GAS.

Guys like you (who are not spending a decent amount of monies on plugins) are the main reason for the deterioration of the plugin market and for the insolvencies of a lot of developers. Nothing to be proud of.

[El°HYM]

A lot of hit records were made with stock plugins; proof of concept.

[Lerian]

the one with the better sounding mix will be preferred by almost everyone.

A "better" sounding mix is not restricted to UAD plugins. You can have an excellent mix using stock plugins, or other brands - like softube, fabfilter, waves, etc. This idea that UAD is way above other brands is just snake oil. Maybe you can have a different flavor, so slightly different (so small that is indistinguishable in a mix), but not night and day different. That is all the mixing/mastering engineer and the producer.

A good producer/mixer using stock plugins of a decent daw (like cubase, live, fl studio, etc) can always get a better sounding mix than an average engineer using whatever plugins they want. This was proven over and over again over time. A different plugin doesn't make a you a better engineer. That's just anxiety infused GAS.

Guys like you (who are not spending a decent amount of monies on plugins) are the main reason for the deterioration of the plugin market and for the insolvencies of a lot of developers. Nothing to be proud of.

Poor you, if you equate money spent with value. Let alone the fact that you make two false assumptions - how much money I've spent, and deterioration of the plugin market.

The plugin market is doing better than ever. Let me say that again: BETTER THAN EVER. The number of developers active in this field went 100x from 2004 when I enrolled in this forum. Some devs are asking $350 for a single EQ, launch price. Another dev is charging $200 for a 20year old single band saturation plugin, that is long technically obsolete. Yet, people are buying it.

Also, this market exploded in the last 15 years, since social networks became ubiquitous. The number of "producers" went 100x too.

Also the amount of money you spend is just a story you tell yourself so you can feel good about your choices.

You are laughable at. You really are, and unfortunately a lot of other people in this forum are in the same boat.

[Lerian]

double

[9headshydra]

A good producer/mixer using stock plugins of a decent daw (like cubase, live, fl studio, etc) can always get a better sounding mix than an average engineer using whatever plugins they want. This was proven over and over again over time. A different plugin doesn't make a you a better engineer. That's just anxiety infused GAS.

GAS is only about peoples who need to try, take a look at and buy every new plugins released each week. no more no less.